King Joe And The Ducky
King Joe and the Ducky is the 13th episode of ObjectTales. This story is a retelling of David and Bathsheba from the Book of Second Samuel. Plot The show opens up on the countertop with Jimmy and Jerry Spraycan, who are disguised poorly as Mario and Jerry. They say they've received a letter from a guy named Jimmy who lives somewhere near Texas (presumably in Kansas). He mentions of a friend of his named Jerry who is very selfish. Jerry (dressed as Jerry) speaks up and says that Jerry is a very nice guy and the guy who is really selfish is called Hubert. Jimmy (dressed as Mario) is annoyed with Jerry for messing up the letter. Jerry takes off his Jerry costume and lashes out at Jimmy. All of a sudden, the real Mario and Jerry appear and confront Jimmy and Jerry. Jimmy and Jerry say they figured Mario and Jerry could use a break and they've wanted to host a show ever since Ian and the Giant Sock Puppet. Mario at first isn't sure about letting the spraycans host at first, but he lets them when they say that they have a story to tell. The story they have is a poorly acted play called "The Frenchman Who went up a hill (and came down with all the cucumbers)." In the play, Lamp #1 is dressed as an Frenchman who came down a hill and took a bunch of cucumbers and won't eat one without a tomato. On the other side of the stage, a scottman (Jerry) has a bunch of tomatoes he had taken from a hill and won't eat one unless he has a cucumber. Jimmy appears briefly and tries to correct him that he's not Scottish. As soon as the music stops, Jerry hushes him, prompting him to move off the screen to the left and let the play resume. The two gentlemen see the veggtable they have and they won't share their vegetables with each other. After the story ends, Jimmy and Jerry head towards Xwerty for a verse only to find that he is completely shut off. Jerry then shows a piece of cardboard with "Don't be selfish" scribbled on. As the spraycans attempt to wrap up the show, a fed up Mario comes out and discredits Jimmy and Jerry for their performance, plus he scolds them with their results. Mario then asks Jerry if he remembers about a letter from Lucy Thompson from Bismarck, North Dakota, which reads that she won't share her toys with her little brother. The two then begin to play the story of "King Joe and the Ducky." In the story, there lived a king named Joe (Jerry) who lived in a very big castle. While his kingdom is in the middle of a popcorn war, all he ever does is hang out in his bathtub and play with his rubber ducky. King Joe's assistant Thomas (Mario) always urges him to stop fooling around and start taking part in leading his troops in the popcorn war. But Joe always ignores Thomas and focuses on him and his rubber duck collection. One day, as Joe looks over his kingdom, he notices a poor boy named Louis (Little Tommy Cup) bathing outside and playing with his own rubber duck. Filled with envy, King Joe's focus is all on Louis' duck and will do stop at nothing to get the duck. Meanwhile, Seymour (Lamp #1), King Joe's top general of his army, comes by to inform Joe that his army is desperate need of more soldiers. Seeing this as an opportunity to snatch Louis' duck, King Joe says that Louis will be willing to enlist and to send him to the front line alone. Joe and Thomas begin to prep for taking the duck. Later that night, King Joe and Thomas head out to Louis' house to take the duck. They take the duck from Louis' house and head back to the castle. At the castle, Seymour comes in with Louis, who has won the battle all by himself but is suffering terrible PTSD from the battle. King Joe doesn't feel remorse and focuses on the duck. Thomas snaps at Joe for being selfish and focusing on what he cares about. Meanwhile, Dorian, (Pa Broomstick) a storyteller, comes in and tells a parable about a rich man who has a lot of sheep and a poor man who has only one sheep which he loves very deeply. When the rich man is visited by the guest, he goes to the poor man and steals his sheep to serve as dinner to his guest. Demanding who the horrible rich man is, Dorian points out that the rich man is King Joe himself. Dorian tells Joe that whether he's a king or kid, Neptune wants him to put others first. King Joe then heads to Louis and puts him in his bath and give back his duck to make up for his sins. King Joe, Thomas, and Louis then a song about it is always right about putting people first. Back on the countertop, the bible verse of the day is Romans 12:10; Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. The show ends with Jimmy and Jerry coming out with the French Feather Dusters who are dressed as Mario and Jerry and asks if they can host a show of their own. Features a brand new Funny Song "Endangered Love" Trivia * "Break a leg" is showterms for saying "Good luck!". * Infidel is another way to someone who doesn't believe. * Boysenberry is a type of berry, which is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry. * A cobbler is similar to a pie, but with a biscuit topping. * The "Bye-bye, Lumpy!" message is a farewell for using the previous server (possibly SoftImage) for the shows. * This episode was the first for several things: ** The first episode to use Maya, as well the first appearance of Lamp One with his new hairdo. ** The first episode where someone else besides Mario and Jerry try to take over the Countertop. ** The first episode Tod Carter worked on. ** The first episode not to have Madame Wardrobe since her debut appearance. ** The first time Jerry played the main antagonist of an episode. He turns nice at the end afterwards. *** Speaking of which, some fans wrote letters saying they didn't like Jerry being mean. ** The first episode where someone else sings the What Have We Learned song in its entirety, as Mario cut off Jerry before he finishes the song in Jeff, Austin and Yugo. * The costumes Jimmy and Jerry wore were based on the ones Zack Nawrocki experienced when he went to be a spokesperson for a Vacation Bible School. The kids at who did VBS actually made cardboard cutouts of Mario and Jerry. * This episode marks the return of letters received from a kid by Mario and Jerry since Peter and the Mega Forcefield! However, this episode would mark the last appearance of letters until The Ballad of Little George. * During the scenes of King Joe taking Louis' duck, there's a graffiti of King Joe and his castle on the viewer's right. It also has "Selfi," which probably means "Selfish." So the picture is probably drawn by someone who didn't like King Harold. * Quinn said this was the riskiest episode they wrote, since the original Bible story it's based after is more "adult" themed. Sean Gaffney helped out when he wrote a ten page draft called "King Dave and the Bath Ducky", which is basically just the same Bible story but with a rubber duck. Alvin then decided to tweak it (eg. names and locations) because he didn't want kids to know what Bible story it's based on. * According to Quinn, Pa Broomstick's character was named Micheal, but then changed to Dorian in the final. * Zack Nawrocki read the interactive storybook version on Madame Wardrobe. * On the original VHS release, it contains the 3-2-1 Legos! Promo. * One of the screenshots on the back of the cover have King Joe and Thomas smiling. Thomas is smiling with his teeth, whilst in the actual episode, he has his mouth opened. * If you watch the video on a computer, you'll notice some white behind in the scene where Harold and Louis were down the castle. * The countertop scenes are in more of a yellow-ish look. Quinn apologizes to anyone who notices it. * If the tall man was Louis as shown in the flannelgraph, his character doesn't have him tall at all. * All of King Joe's other ducks are all just the same generic yellow, which pretty much removes the point of keeping multiple of the same in storage. * It's unknown how exactly Xwerty turns on, having turned off in the beginning but turned on after the story. * Jimmy presses "Option" on Xwerty, but there's no such key on a real keyboard. * It's unknown when the story of King Joe takes place, considering he uses a quarter to operate the binoculars. * Jimmy states he just had a break, probably referring to the previous episode. * The quote "Ay ay, Skipper!" is a reference to Jerry's Lagoon. * In the teaser trailer from the second sing along, the narrator mentions King Arthur and Henry the 8th. * Jerry's line "You wanna piece of me?!" was a homage to the first Toy Story film. * The first story's title is a spoof on "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain" starring Hugh Grant. * The glasses King Joe wore while stealing Louis' duck are Groucho Marx glasses. * A prequel of the story would be made years later. * The glasses would become a running gag in later episodes, though in a slightly different variation. Goofs * After the pie hits Jean Claude, his right eye clips through the pie crust. * One shot shows King Joe in his king clothes, but in the next shot it turns back to his towel, and after that he has his king clothes back on. * Background mountain shots are shown at inconsistent angles. One shot shows in a lower position, but the shots after that show the mountains back to their normal position.